The NEAR Foundation’s Vision for the Future

The past several weeks have been challenging for many within crypto. This downturn is also very different from the previous 2018/2019 crypto winter as it is occurring against the backdrop of surging inflation, rising interest rates and global instability.

Crypto isn’t immune to these shocks, but the crypto ecosystem is more robust than it was three years ago. There is more capital than ever flowing into projects, an increasing amount of top talent, and a maturing of the infrastructure that provides a better foundation for more projects to flourish.

The NEAR Foundation has always focused on diligent and conservative treasury management, and as an ecosystem, we are therefore well-positioned to weather this storm. There has never been a better time to build on NEAR. A bear market is not a time to pause, it is a time to build, invest and organize to succeed – it is a time to put our best foot forward and execute at pace. 

To better serve and address the needs of the growing NEAR ecosystem we have made a couple of structural changes to the NEAR Foundation organization, which are described below. 

NEAR Foundation Mission

The mission of the Foundation is to foster the conditions by which an ecosystem can flourish, assisting and aiding others to reimagine business, creativity, and community in their own ways. The Foundation exists to help inspire and empower people to join the ecosystem, by acting as a trusted party and gateway into this new world. It is one part of a larger puzzle. 

To help visualize how the Foundation interacts with the NEAR ecosystem we have developed a new mental model which is the basis for our internal OKRs, priority settings, and team priorities. 

NEAR Foundation is a centralized organization championing decentralization as part of a decentralized ecosystem. Over time, NEAR Foundation’s role will continue to evolve as new funds emerge via ecosystem and regional funds, and as the community takes on more and more.

NEAR Foundation Changes

To best foster the conditions needed for the NEAR Ecosystem to continue its tremendous growth, we are reorganizing our teams alongside our key principles:

• Adopting a functionally aligned organizational structure across the Foundation, operating in a more streamlined way.
• Combining all our efforts on growing and supporting our community under one “Community Team”, to continuously focus and help address the needs of our growing ecosystem.
• Creating a product/engineering organization under new Product and Engineering leadership, which will enable us not only to re-purpose our website (the key entry point to the NEAR ecosystem) but also to have more perspective on products built in the ecosystem and be able to address technical queries for our partners more effectively.

To achieve this, we have created 16 new open positions for roles that help the Foundation achieve its mission. If you want to join us, or our ecosystem please check out –  https://careers.near.org/jobs 

As part of this reorganization, 17 team members will be leaving the NEAR Foundation. Most of these will move their skills into the NEAR ecosystem, joining one of the 600+ projects building the future of the web. Others will join NEAR hub and other community-led projects. Seeing friends and colleagues leave an organization is never easy. We are extremely grateful for their immense contribution, continued support, and participation in the NEAR ecosystem. 

This is not a downsize, but a reorganization to better serve the needs of the ecosystem. We are very well positioned to succeed in the bear market. NEAR Foundation has always focused on diligent and conservative treasury management, and as an ecosystem we are therefore well-positioned to weather the storm. No better time to build on NEAR!

We are confident that being well organized is the first step in that direction and we are confident that our new structure is setting us up for success.

Marieke.